Colloquy: Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships (Online)

Share your reflections on the topic based on quotes, parables, poems, etc. presented by the moderator. There are no right or wrong answers, just your individual response shared in a contemplative atmosphere.

A colloquy led by Matthew Benson

As the authoritative modern text on the subject, “Attached: the New Science of Adult Attachment” by Amir Levine, M.D. and Rachel S.F. Heller M.A. presents, based on the research of psychologist Mary Ainsworth and psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1950s, our adult attachment style is developed in early childhood in response to our relationships with our earliest caregivers and evolves depending on our past trauma, self awareness and life experiences. Approximately 50% of people have a secure attachment style and the other half have either an anxious, dismissive avoidant, or fearful avoidant attachment style.

This Mind Body Green article explains the four adult attachment styles:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/attachment-theory-and-the-4-attachment-styles

Our colloquy discussion will explore these four adult attachment styles and how we can come to recognize our individual adult attachment style and do the personal work to emotionally heal, evolve, and develop a more secure attachment style for the most enriching and lasting relationships with our loved ones and friends in life.

Understanding these attachment styles is also fascinatingly enlightening, as they can help us understand why our partners and friends in life treat us the way they do, and recognize that the kind or hurtful ways they treat us may not entirely be there fault, but merely reflective of the attachment style they developed, based on how they were treated by their caregivers in early childhood. Ideally we can all discover our own attachment style and do the personal work necessary to cultivate a more secure adult attachment style for ourselves and our loved ones and friends in life.

it is not required, but it is encouraged that you take the free 5-minute attachment style quiz below at Minds Body Green before joining the colloquy. There will be time to do this quiz online in the colloquy as well and, once we have determined our attachment style, we can discuss how our and different attachment styles affect ourselves and others in our relationships.

Click on this link below to take the free 5 minute quiz to determine what your adult attachment style is:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/attachment-style-quiz

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